It’s important to pause after a project to review, recap and learn from the efforts of all those that contributed. It’s important to get feedback from all involved from the staff, vendors, the customers, sponsors, all those that provided materials or service to the good of the whole. Even if the project doesn’t exactly match the next, comments help you learn what worked, discover where you need grow and imagine how to maximize the next effort. The knowledge gained can help you and others to avoid schedule and cost overruns or improve efficacy.

Winston, the Burmese Rescue Dog from Diamond in the Ruff and his owner stopped by the Reach Partners office to offer comments at the finish of 2015 Fargo Marathon Charities. He celebrated with some cheese.

Learn from the last project to carry forward best practices in the future:

Review the project through the basic categories that provided the framework. Record your thoughts and what and how you think others may contribute. This can serve as an agenda for a lessons learned meeting with the team.

Assess the materials created for the effort. Did you create new templates to carry over into another project? How can these documents improve? What needs to be dropped?

Look to the people that worked on the project and glean insight from their perspectives. Use whatever tactic is most efficient for the individuals or group; it may be an interview, survey or meeting to capture their comments and observations.

Evaluate the issues logged throughout the project.Were all the issues resolved? How, by whom, and can they be avoided in the future?

Document clear and succinct recommendations. Give your future self a simple framework to review comments so that you (and your successors) don’t have to slog through pages and paragraphs for the nuggets of truth you can provide.Use bullets or a table to categorize issues, note success or problems, indicate impact, and display recommendations.

Finish the project with celebration. Let the last memory of the project be a positive one for you and your team.

The efforts of gathering the crew at the close of the project to kvetch, review, learn and celebrate can strengthen the relationships within the team. A great team paired with the clear recommendations and lessons learned can make the next project run a little more smoothly, efficiently and to the greater good.

Reach Partners closes your project with the positive impact of your goals achieved. We finish each project noting the insights and key learnings discovered along the way. Through the end, we work to earn your trust and confidence as a ready, reliable partner